obama was elected with a surplus of about 3 million votes. he won the election, he campaigned on this issue. again, the speaker can't take yes for an answer. the president has presented to him something that would prevent us from going over the cliff. it was in response to something the speaker gave to the president himself, but, again i guess with the dysfunctional republican caucus in the house, even the speaker can't tell what they're going to do because he backed off of even his own proposal. mr. president, the house, we hear this so often, is controlled by the republicans, and we acknowledge that. i would be most happy to move forward on something that senator mcconnell said they wouldn't filibuster over here that they would support and boehner would support it if it were reasonable, but right now we haven't heard anything. i don't know, and it's none of my business, i guess, although i am very curious, if the speaker and the majority leader, the republican leader over here are even talking. what's going on here? mr. president, you can't